Siege of Budapest

The Siege of Budapest was a siege of the Hungarian capital city of Budapest, fought towards the end of World War II in Europe, during the Soviet Budapest Offensive.

The siege started when Budapest, defended by Hungarian and German troops, was first encircled on 29 December 1944 by the Red Army and the Romanian Army. The siege ended when the city was unconditionally surrendered on 13 February 1945. The Soviet forces besieging the city were part of Rodion Malinovsky's 2nd Ukrainian Front. Arrayed against the Soviets was a collection of German Army (Wehrmacht Heer), Waffen-SS, and Hungarian Army (Honvédség) forces. The Siege of Budapest was one of the bloodiest sieges of World War II.

The Siege of Budapest was one of the longest and bloodiest battles of WWII. Between the appearance of the first Soviet tank and the final capture of Buda Castle, 102 days were to pass. In comparison, Berlin and Vienna fell after 2 weeks and 6 days respectively, while no other European city, with the exception of Warsaw, was the scene of a major battle. Even those German units that persevered the longest, like Kďż˝nigsberg (Kaliningrad) and Breslau (Wroclaw), resisted the attackers for 77 and 82 days respectively. The fierceness of the battle of Budapest can be compared only to the sieges of Leningrad (St. Petersburg), Stalingrad (Volgograd) and Warsaw.